This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Axe hitting McClatchy's DC bureau... as many as one fourth of the bureau said vulnerable (UPDATED)

As a tipster informed me a few days ago, McClatchy will be handing out pink slips at the DC bureau soon -- if it hasn't started doing so already. The numbers haven't been announced but a former DC bureau employee says he has heard as many as one fourth of McClatchy's DC bureau are vulnerable to getting pink slips. Here are the numbers:

There are 43 people in the bureau, 12 of them such as the bureau chief, copy desk chief, White House and Congressional correspondents are essential, so that leaves 31 vulnerable.

I don't assume the bureau chief (John Walcott) or the House and Congressional correspondents are safe. Here's why: McClatchy is working on combining coverage with The Christian Science Monitor and Politico, so that means there are any number of redundant positions. And I've been told MTI (McClatchy-Tribune Information) is ramping up its DC coverage. So count on it: McClatchy now has plenty of over-lapping positions in the DC bureau which will be cut.

Photo of DC bureau cubicles by Daniel Rosenbaum, The New York Times.

UPDATE: The former McClatchy employee who posted the item deleted the post. However, the post has been cached; you can see it here..

The reason the Washington Bureau won't be touched had nothing to do with the nonsense posted by the anom posters above. It is all about ego. Pruitt's ego will not allow the "prestigious" Golden Staffer's of the Washington office to be diminished. It would truly signal he screwed up. As if THAT hasn't been proven already

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